20 Oct
2003
20 Oct
'03
3:35 p.m.
Folks,
I recently copied down the 32V source, and compiled the kernel with gcc. Much
to my surprise, most of it compiled. I then split out the machine dependent
versus the machine independent files (loose classification :-), and compiled
again. Naturally, in both cases, you could not actually build a kernel because
there are vax specific .s files, but the individual C files compiled. Not a bad
start.
As a result, I've been giving serious consideration to porting it to Intel IA32
platforms. It's much simpler than the unix I worked on until last year (Tru64,
aka OSF/1 and Digital UNIX), and the 32V kernel is only a little bigger than the
original FreeDOS kernel I wrote. The Caldera license is pretty much a BSD
license, which could be considered an open source license. This means I should
be able to work on it without worrying about IP, although I'd still need
management approval.
Should I undertake such an project, would there be enough interest to justify
the effort?
Pat
--
You can't build a reputation on what you are going to do. -- Henry Ford
21 Oct
21 Oct
2:50 a.m.
I tried the same with a few of the utilities and a make with the kernel files.
<shock and awe>Dependencies again</shock and awe> - with most of the utilities
the compile was easy, since their dependencies were easily filled by the
standard Linux C libraries. Since many of the kernel dependencies depend on
the vax specific .s files and I don't know anything about the vax at the
moment, I decided to leave it until I _did_ know. That's why I've been
asking stoopid questions on this list.
Well, if you're keen on it, I am too. I need something to do over the
holidays.
Wesley Parish
On Tue, 21 Oct 2003 02:35, Pat Villani wrote:
Folks,
I recently copied down the 32V source, and compiled the kernel with gcc.
Much to my surprise, most of it compiled. I then split out the machine
dependent versus the machine independent files (loose classification :-),
and compiled again. Naturally, in both cases, you could not actually build
a kernel because there are vax specific .s files, but the individual C
files compiled. Not a bad start.
As a result, I've been giving serious consideration to porting it to Intel
IA32 platforms. It's much simpler than the unix I worked on until last
year (Tru64, aka OSF/1 and Digital UNIX), and the 32V kernel is only a
little bigger than the original FreeDOS kernel I wrote. The Caldera
license is pretty much a BSD license, which could be considered an open
source license. This means I should be able to work on it without worrying
about IP, although I'd still need management approval.
Should I undertake such an project, would there be enough interest to
justify the effort?
Pat
--
Mau e ki, "He aha te mea nui?"
You ask, "What is the most important thing?"
Maku e ki, "He tangata, he tangata, he tangata."
I reply, "It is people, it is people, it is people."
4 p.m.
Wesley Parish wrote:
I tried the same with a few of the utilities and a
make with the kernel files.
Having come to HP from DEC by way of Compaq, vax isn't that challenging
for me. :)
I did not try compiling the utilities. My interests have always been at
the kernel level. I am encouraged by the fact that you were able to
build the utilities. This should make life a lot easier.
What I've done so far is split the files into vax specific and "somewhat
vax specific" platform neutral files. This is just a first cut, where I
separated out things such as .s files and .c files that are vax
dependent, such as device drivers, from files that should be platform
neutral.
I did not go through the platform neutral files to correct for vax
dependencies, if any. That's my next task.
I'll tar up what I have so far and put it on a web site for folks to
look at.
Pat
22 Oct
22 Oct
10:10 a.m.
I'm doing an en-masse compile of the programs in the /32V/usr/src/cmd
directory, little-by-little, bit-by-bit.
Some don't compile, some do.
I've also run the bigger utilities - in their separate directories - through
make with Greg Lehey's little one-liner script from "Porting UNIX
Software",
pg 74:
make 2>&1 | tee -a Make.log
and will gzip and email them to you if you like.
Wesley Parish
On Wed, 22 Oct 2003 03:00, Pat Villani wrote:
Wesley Parish wrote:
--
Mau e ki, "He aha te mea nui?"
You ask, "What is the most important thing?"
Maku e ki, "He tangata, he tangata, he tangata."
I reply, "It is people, it is people, it is people."
I tried the same with a few of the utilities and
a make with the kernel
files.
Having come to HP from DEC by way of Compaq, vax isn't that challenging
for me. :)
I did not try compiling the utilities. My interests have always been at
the kernel level. I am encouraged by the fact that you were able to
build the utilities. This should make life a lot easier.
What I've done so far is split the files into vax specific and "somewhat
vax specific" platform neutral files. This is just a first cut, where I
separated out things such as .s files and .c files that are vax
dependent, such as device drivers, from files that should be platform
neutral.
I did not go through the platform neutral files to correct for vax
dependencies, if any. That's my next task.
I'll tar up what I have so far and put it on a web site for folks to
look at.
Pat
24 Oct
24 Oct
3:41 p.m.
OK. I'm in the process of getting approval for this project. I'll put
what I've done so far up on a web site and send out the URL. If you do
send the gzip'ed commands, I'll include those as well. No rush, as I
won't do any of this until this weekend.
Pat
Wesley Parish wrote:
I'm doing an en-masse compile of the programs in
the /32V/usr/src/cmd
directory, little-by-little, bit-by-bit.
Some don't compile, some do.
I've also run the bigger utilities - in their separate directories - through
make with Greg Lehey's little one-liner script from "Porting UNIX
Software",
pg 74:
make 2>&1 | tee -a Make.log
and will gzip and email them to you if you like.
Wesley Parish
On Wed, 22 Oct 2003 03:00, Pat Villani wrote:
Wesley Parish wrote:
I tried the same with a few of the utilities and a
make with the kernel
files.
Having come to HP from DEC by way of Compaq, vax isn't that challenging
for me. :)
I did not try compiling the utilities. My interests have always been at
the kernel level. I am encouraged by the fact that you were able to
build the utilities. This should make life a lot easier.
What I've done so far is split the files into vax specific and "somewhat
vax specific" platform neutral files. This is just a first cut, where I
separated out things such as .s files and .c files that are vax
dependent, such as device drivers, from files that should be platform
neutral.
I did not go through the platform neutral files to correct for vax
dependencies, if any. That's my next task.
I'll tar up what I have so far and put it on a web site for folks to
look at.
Pat
29 Oct
29 Oct
10:01 a.m.
Just a short note to say I've compiled the libF77.a library archive.
I'll try the rest of the libraries, and note which ones compile cleanly and
which throw their hands up in horror.
Wesley Parish
On Sat, 25 Oct 2003 02:41, Pat Villani wrote:
OK. I'm in the process of getting approval for
this project. I'll put
what I've done so far up on a web site and send out the URL. If you do
send the gzip'ed commands, I'll include those as well. No rush, as I
won't do any of this until this weekend.
Pat
Wesley Parish wrote:
> I'm doing an en-masse compile of the programs in the /32V/usr/src/cmd
> directory, little-by-little, bit-by-bit.
>
> Some don't compile, some do.
>
> I've also run the bigger utilities - in their separate directories -
> through make with Greg Lehey's little one-liner script from "Porting UNIX
> Software", pg 74:
> make 2>&1 | tee -a Make.log
>
> and will gzip and email them to you if you like.
>
> Wesley Parish
>
> On Wed, 22 Oct 2003 03:00, Pat Villani wrote:
>>Wesley Parish wrote:
>>>I tried the same with a few of the utilities and a make with the kernel
>>>files.
>>
>>Having come to HP from DEC by way of Compaq, vax isn't that challenging
>>for me. :)
>>
>>I did not try compiling the utilities. My interests have always been at
>>the kernel level. I am encouraged by the fact that you were able to
>>build the utilities. This should make life a lot easier.
>>
>>What I've done so far is split the files into vax specific and
"somewhat
>>vax specific" platform neutral files. This is just a first cut, where I
>>separated out things such as .s files and .c files that are vax
>>dependent, such as device drivers, from files that should be platform
>>neutral.
>>
>>I did not go through the platform neutral files to correct for vax
>>dependencies, if any. That's my next task.
>>
>>I'll tar up what I have so far and put it on a web site for folks to
>>look at.
>>
>>Pat
--
Clinesterton Beademung - in all of love.
Mau e ki, "He aha te mea nui?"
You ask, "What is the most important thing?"
Maku e ki, "He tangata, he tangata, he tangata."
I reply, "It is people, it is people, it is people."
30 Oct
30 Oct
1:56 p.m.
New subject: 32V update (was Re: While on the subject of 32V ...)
I got corporate approval, well, as best as I could from corporate legal,
to proceed. The only caveats are: beware of the SCO shenanigans as 32V
may encounter a similar wrath, and make sure I don't "compete" with HP.
How in the world a 15 year old operating system threatens SCO or
competes with HP is beyond me. At any rate, I'll start moving the email
activity off the corporate network soon, in order to comply with open
source participation rules.
In the meantime, I have just placed a copy of the reorganized kernel
files in ftp://server.opensourcedepot.com/pub/32V. This is my personal
server, so it's easy for me to put source code there, at least for now.
The reorganization consists mainly of separating out drivers, and a
scratch file for a locore.asm file. I also placed formalized license
notices in the directory and files, so to alert everyone of the license
terms.
It's a start ...
Pat
31 Oct
31 Oct
11:13 a.m.
New subject: 32V update (was Re: While on the subject of 32V ...)
It's downloaded.
I would suggest renaming it to something like 32V-x86, though - makes it
easier to remember it's not going to be precisely the same as 32V for VAX.
In relation to corporate caveats, the only way you could actually compete with
HP is if somehow, in a matter of months, you redid the entire development of
BSD and SVRx, up to the stage HP-UX currently is at.
Oh well, time for me to brush off my Pajari book on Unix device drivers and
see if I can make the grade! ;)
Wesley Parish
On Fri, 31 Oct 2003 01:56, Pat Villani wrote:
I got corporate approval, well, as best as I could
from corporate legal,
to proceed. The only caveats are: beware of the SCO shenanigans as 32V
may encounter a similar wrath, and make sure I don't "compete" with HP.
How in the world a 15 year old operating system threatens SCO or
competes with HP is beyond me. At any rate, I'll start moving the email
activity off the corporate network soon, in order to comply with open
source participation rules.
In the meantime, I have just placed a copy of the reorganized kernel
files in ftp://server.opensourcedepot.com/pub/32V. This is my personal
server, so it's easy for me to put source code there, at least for now.
The reorganization consists mainly of separating out drivers, and a
scratch file for a locore.asm file. I also placed formalized license
notices in the directory and files, so to alert everyone of the license
terms.
It's a start ...
Pat
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--
Clinesterton Beademung - in all of love.
Mau e ki, "He aha te mea nui?"
You ask, "What is the most important thing?"
Maku e ki, "He tangata, he tangata, he tangata."
I reply, "It is people, it is people, it is people."
3:26 p.m.
New subject: 32V update (was Re: While on the subject of 32V ...)
Silly lawyers :-) I know I'm good, but building in all the HP-UX
features in a few months? Not that good (or modest for that matter).
Hm, 32V-x86 huh? Maybe, but I'd like to make it fairly portable and
have a number of targets built from the same source tree. I don't know
if that will ever happen, but I don't want to design it out either by
name or file partitioning. Maybe we can address the project name at a
later date.
I'll keep the VAX port alive throughout the project by making sure I can
cross compile a clean VAX kernel at every milestone. There may still be
a VAX in the building somewhere. Even if one was around, I won't be
testing the VAX port thanks to HP legal. We're now cleaning house of
alpha systems, so a VAX is almost impossible to locate. Darn mergers
keeps wiping them out, like that asteroid and dinosaurs years ago ;-)
Progress: I'm working on the make file. I'm trying to get a clean build
by substituting stubs for the VAX code I ripped out. Once done, I can
concentrate on x86 equivalents.
Device drivers: I have keyboard and character cell VGA code I can use.
I had been planning on adapting the Hale Landis ATA code from
http://www.ata-atapi.com/, and the Thix floppy driver from
http://www.hulubei.net/tudor/thix/ is probably a good piece of code to
model the 32V driver on.
Pat
Wesley Parish wrote:
It's downloaded.
I would suggest renaming it to something like 32V-x86, though - makes it
easier to remember it's not going to be precisely the same as 32V for VAX.
In relation to corporate caveats, the only way you could actually compete with
HP is if somehow, in a matter of months, you redid the entire development of
BSD and SVRx, up to the stage HP-UX currently is at.
Oh well, time for me to brush off my Pajari book on Unix device drivers and
see if I can make the grade! ;)
Wesley Parish
5 Nov
5 Nov
3:22 a.m.
New subject: 32V update (was Re: While on the subject of 32V ...)
On Thursday, 30 October 2003 at 7:56:41 -0500, Pat Villani wrote:
I got corporate approval, well, as best as I could
from corporate legal,
to proceed. The only caveats are: beware of the SCO shenanigans as 32V
may encounter a similar wrath,
I'm only just catching up with this thread, but I'm surprised that
nobody else pointed out that SCO is the same company that released
"ancient UNIX" under a free license in January 2002. Given SCO's
behaviour, that doesn't guarantee that they won't cause problems, but
it should severely limit the scope.
Greg
--
Finger grog(a)lemis.com for PGP public key
See complete headers for address and phone numbers
1:53 p.m.
New subject: 32V update (was Re: While on the subject of 32V ...)
I have my opinions about SCO, and what they're doing. I don't think
we'll see any problems because this activity is down in the noise. They
need to challenge Linux at the enterprise level. It will be quite some
time, if ever, that 32V reaches that level of complexity in order to be
a threat.
For now, it's an exercise in nostalgia. In 1980, a friend and I
investigated licensing unix for sale on 68K and 8086 based computers.
We couldn't raise the $68,000 source+binary license fee, so the project
died. That was more than double my salary as an engineer at that time.
Now, 23 years later, I'm going to do a port to see how close my original
estimates are to reality. After the initial port, who knows?
Pat
Greg Lehey wrote:
On Thursday, 30 October 2003 at 7:56:41 -0500, Pat
Villani wrote:
I got corporate approval, well, as best as I could
from corporate legal,
to proceed. The only caveats are: beware of the SCO shenanigans as 32V
may encounter a similar wrath,
I'm only just catching up with this thread, but I'm surprised that
nobody else pointed out that SCO is the same company that released
"ancient UNIX" under a free license in January 2002. Given SCO's
behaviour, that doesn't guarantee that they won't cause problems, but
it should severely limit the scope.
Greg
--
Finger grog(a)lemis.com for PGP public key
See complete headers for address and phone numbers
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Wesley Parish